Manuel Rocha Iturbide
Born in 1963 in Mexico City, Manuel Rocha Iturbide studies composition at the Escuela Nacional de Música at UNAM. He finishes an MFA in electronic music and composition at Mills College. In Paris, he finishes a PHD in computer music at the University of Paris VIII in 1999. He has worked at different studios like UPIC, GRM, IRCAM, LIEM, BANFF, IMEB, in order to produce works. He worked as a researcher at IRCAM developing GiST (1994-95) and later as a professor at the University of Paris VIII (1995-96). He has received prizes and honorific mentions from different international contests like Bourges, Russolo, Ars Electronica and the Schaeffer Prize. His music has been performed all around the world. He is also an artist and his work has been showed at important galleries and museums as ”Artist Space NY 1997”, “Sydney Biennale 1998”, “ARCO 1999”, “Art or Sound” show at Prada Foundation Italy (2014), etc. He has produced works for important ensembles such as Court Circuit, Arditti String Quartet, Onix and Liminar. He currently lives in Mexico City where he is a full time professor in the art deparment at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana University (UAM).
His web page is www.artesonoro.net
Light And Dust. The title of this piece was inspired in the cosmic interstellar phenomena of dust and gas clouds which eventually collide creating stars and planets, but also in stellar globular cumulus where we can experience an incredible visual underplay between stars and light through the wonderful images taken by powerful telescopes, or by watching the via lactea in a clear night.
The composition was based in the different timbre qualities of the oboe instrument, but it also uses electronic transformed sounds coming from his brothers and cousins (Bass oboe, English horn, and Bassoon).
I particularly worked with the incredible multiphonic sounds produced by them, also with different sound iteration techniques such as bisbigliando, double staccato, frullato, and with glissandi sounds.
A new version of Light & Dust was made for Soprano Saxophone for Pedro Bittencourt about five years ago. This is a new recording of this version made in 2019.